Nightmares and Daydreams (discontinued)

A ghost and a nightmare

 O'Hara woke up lying on a carpet of leaves. She had no idea what had just happened or where she was. What she did know was that she was in a lot of pain. Groaning she sat up, and looked around. She was in a forest somewhere, and close by her was a strange statue of a triangle wearing a hat... wait! Suddenly the memories of what just happened came rushing back to her. Filling her head with images and sound so quickly it was like someone had just set off a bomb inside her head. She fell back clutching her head, waiting for the rush of information to stop.

She just lay there on her back for what felt like an hour, hands clutching her head until the pain subsided. Once her brain settled she continued to lie down. Processing what she had just remembered. Something had swallowed her, Mabel, and Jace. Some kind of big shadow, and whatever was in that shadow had taken her into her memories, but O'Hara couldn't remember what had happened after that. Just the beach, a weird orb and... A deal.

She bolted upright and looked around frantically. She had made a deal with Vena or whatever the wield ball of darkness had called itself. Vena had asked O'Hara to 'let me in' but in where? And where was she now? Why was no one else still there? Where were Jace and Mabel? What happened to them? As O'Hara paced frantically looking down at the ground she heard a small giggle come from near the statue. She whipped her head around up to see... Herself. She saw herself slowly stand up and admire her hands. "Wowee!" The second O'Hara said, "Having nerves is weird." The second O'Hara then looked and noticed the stunned face of the actual O'Hara. The doppelgänger smirked, "I'm guessing you have some questions." O'Hara, regaining her voice, spoke up. "Who... What... Wh-why do you look like me?" She said shakily. The double cocked her head in confusion, as if she didn't understand the question. Then her expression changed from confusion, to realization, the to pure sinister amusement.

"You really don't know what's going on do you?" It said. "Haven't you looked at your hands? Or realized that you couldn't feel anything?" O'Hara looked down at her hands and she froze. Her hands were red, and see through. Her breath quickened as she realized that, the double was right she couldn't feel anything outside her own body. Her vision swam and she leaned up against the nearest tree, suddenly dizzy. But she passed through it and landed on her back. She started to hyperventilate as this new information sank in. Meanwhile her double was having a field day, "Oh my this... this is rich!" It said bursting out laughing. "You couldn't tell you weren't in your own body! Oh my stars that is priceless!"

O'Hara sucked in a deep breath and clutched at her chest. She could feel her chest, but it was like she was made of solid air... like solid nothingness. She didn't even have the comfort of feeling her blood run cold from the shock.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked her double, Suddenly all the mirth, all the laughter left her double's face. The speed at which her expression changed was unnatural... disturbing almost.

"Because your friends killed my brother. He said he would come back for me but they killed him. Now I can only get revenge: on Mabel, Stan, Ford, and on the accursed Axolotl."

O'Hara felt a chill this time. Not a physical chill, the kind of chill you get from somebody else. Then just like that, the chill was gone and Vena started laughing again. A pure unhinged laughter that echoed through the woods and caused the birds in the trees to fly off in panic despite the late hour. The look on her face was, unnatural. The amount of emotion being displayed was far more than a human face should be able to show, yet there it was.

"What's so funny?" O'Hara asked almost afraid to hear the answer. "I... I was just thinking about the time I asked him to bring Bill back." Vena fell to her hands and knees gasping for breath from laughing so hard. As she spoke though, the gasping breath turned into heaving sobs. "I... I... I said to it 'please give me back my brother' and... and do you know what it said?" O'Hara didn't answer, seeing the crazed look in Vena's... in her own eyes."

Vena looked up sharply at O'Hara "It said, 'No brother, nor sister, nor father nor mother, shall you be given. For what never was can not be returned...' What never was, what never was, but it couldn't mean that Bill wasn't my brother, he... he was the only family I ever had, the only being who knew me. The Axolotl said that he didn't... that... he never..." Vena's breathing picked up, her demeanour changing from sorrowful to crazy instantly.

"That giant space lizard said that Bill never cared about me. That he just used me to gain power and then forgot all about me. But I knew it was lying, it had to be. It HAD to be. So right there I said 'If you wont give me back Bill then I'll just do it myself!' Then the lizard said 'beware young demon, that the order will not be disturbed, if you attempt to alter Bill's fate then you will be destroyed!' Vena then spat onto the dirt "But the Axolotl knew that he couldn't stop me. He can only influence the Dream and Nightmare realms. In this reality, he's helpless like everybody else. But now that I have a body, I can affect everything, and the fun can REALLY begin!"

Vena turned towards the forest, the shadows cast by the moon seemed to shift as she stretched her hand out to them. "You've heard Shooting Star's stories of Bill right? About the things he could do, and what powers he had? Well I'm a bit different." As she said this Vena lifted her hand and her eyes began to glow a dark pink. The shadows in the trees were definitely shifting now, rippling like black waves in a storm. "Bill's power came from the dream realm. He could create illusions and manipulate people's perceptions but the couldn't make anything tangible until he entered the real world."

The shadows began to rise taking twisted shapes. Like deformed animals and people, struggling to escape a sea of inky black water. "My power comes from emotions. Fear, Happiness, Despair, Hope, Anger, Sadness every emotion has power. And I can use it to do all sorts of fun things."

O'Hara watched with rising horror as the shadows cast by the waxing moon began to come to life, rising from the ground in different forms. Birds, deer, even spectres that looked like People. Vena began chanting in a strange language as all of the shadowy figures' eyes suddenly flashed pink and vanished into the woods in a flash. Leaving just O'Hara and Vena alone in the clearing with the statue of Bill, hand outstretched as if ready to make a deal. Vena turned and grinned an unnaturally wide grin at O'Hara. Seeing her own face with that expression made O'Hara sick to her stomach. Which was oddly comforting, at least she wasn't completely devoid of feeling. "Everything has emotions Red," Vena said "And now, those emotions are mine."

That night, everything still awake in Gravity Falls experienced an unexplained feeling of deep dread. And the old magic circle around the Mystery Shack, flashed just for a second.